Dear Grace
by rosiehope
Summary: When Riley finds a postcard, it prompts her to write a letter to the niece she'll never get to know. To Maya and Lucas' daughter. A letter about all the reasons why she'll never get to know her, to tell her the story about the beginning of her family, and the end of Riley's.
1. until you (every reason why)

Dear Grace,

There's about a million ways I could've started this letter, there's about a million ways that I've tried, but none of them have sounded right. Maybe that's because there's absolutely no right way to start this letter, other than I'm Riley, Riley Matthews, and I'm your aunt.

Not by blood or anything, but that's just about the least important thing I have to tell you in these letters, after all, you're mom, my sister, is the most incredible woman I've ever known, and these days she's got a lot more family than I'm sure she knows what to do with, and besides you and your grandmother, I don't think a single one of them is related to her by blood.

She'll teach you how little blood matters, she'll teach you all the reasons why it doesn't matter, but that's not the story I want to tell you, Grace. I want to tell you a love story.

Cheesy, I know, but aren't all stories love stories in some way? The usual girl meets guy, guy meets girl, or because we're educated people living in a progressive society girl meets girl, guy meets guy, and everything else that comes in between.

The point is, I want to tell you a love story, some of it is girl meets guy, guy meets girl, in some instances said girl being your mother and in other instances said girl being me, and in every instance said guy being your father. But mostly this love story is one about sisters, about me, and your mom, but I just know her as Maya.

Maya, Mom, occasionally Peaches, your mom's the one who assigns nicknames around here, whatever you want to call her, was my best friend ever since I was a little girl, for nearly as long as I can remember.

Before I go any further with this story, I need you to understand two things.

The first is that your parents, your mom and your dad, Lucas and Maya, they belong together, not in that 'you complete me' or 'you make me better' sort of way, but in a way that I can't understand, because I never tried to, but for the rest of my life I'm going to try to, sort of way.

And the second is that we all think we know we want, we all think we know where we're going. At least I did. I thought I knew it so perfectly, that the second your parents started deviating off the script that I had in my head, was the second that everything changed, the defining moment that would lead to the end of our love, to the end of Riley and Maya.

I know this sounds melodramatic and maybe even a little bit exaggerated, but this story's complicated, because that's the way our lives were back then, complicated, and confusing, and all of us - your mom, your dad, me, your Uncle Zay, and your Uncle Farkle - were just trying to do the best we could with what we had to work with.

And we made a lot of mistakes, Grace, and we didn't do the growing up thing so well. At least Maya and I didn't.

You're proof, the fact that you are six months old, and I didn't even know your mom was pregnant is proof of that.

I saw it on a card, just a simple black and white postcard that your parents sent to Farkle. There's nothing overdone about, it's simple and elegant, a lot like your name, and exactly what I would've expected from your mom.

It's just a picture of you, and you're laughing this toothless laugh, and don't ask me how I know, but I just do, somewhere in the background of that picture, your mom is taking it, and you're smiling like that at your dad because there's something about you that just screams 'daddy's girl.'

And written underneath it, is just one sentence that changed everything.

 _With love, Maya and Lucas Friar welcome a beautiful baby girl, Graceland Beth Friar, on December 13, 2028 at 12:31 p.m., with her mother's eyes, and her father's hair._

I never believed that a single moment could be life changing, I only believed that there were moments where we realized that our lives had already been change unequivocally, until you.

You changed everything Grace, you made everything real. Maya's gone, Lucas' gone, and that's because of me. Because I made your mom choose, choose between me, and him. And maybe because it's a little bit because of them to, but mostly it's because of all of us.

It's because the three of us stopped talking, at some point, we just stopped talking, and then eventually started lying, then we moved on to hurting each other, and finally, something had to give, and we gave up each other.

And because of all those things, I'll never know you Grace, and that's the first thing about all of this that feels real.

It didn't feel real that I haven't talked to your parents in nearly five years, it didn't feel real that I didn't know your parents were even engaged till a year after they got married, it didn't feel real that your dad moved to Chicago to be with your mom, it didn't feel real that eventually your parents moved to Texas, it didn't feel real that I lost my best friend, that I lost my sister, until you.

Until I learned that you were born from a postcard I found in an apartment of the very last person, the very last thing, Maya, Lucas, and I, still have in common. Until I realized that I'll never even know if you are going to go by Grace or Graceland. Until I realized that I'll never get to see it, I'll never get to see your mom truly happy, truly getting everything that she so completely deserves.

But I'll save the beginning of the story for another time, Grace.

All my love,

Aunt Riley


	2. every road we take (who we used to know)

Dear Grace,

Your dad was always supposed to be a veterinarian. It was a fact. The sky is blue, the grass is green, Maya is my best friend, and Lucas is going to be a veterinarian.

It was the only thing I knew about him with absolute certainty, before I knew about Texas Lucas, and after. I'm not sure your parents will ever tell you about Pre-New York, During-Texas Lucas, but the version of your dad you don't recognize the first time a boy comes to pick you up on a date - well that's Texas Lucas.

And Texas Lucas and New York Lucas wanted to be a veterinarian. I'm not sure when that stopped holding to be true, but what I do know is that I was caught off guard, I was completely and totally caught off guard when Lucas told us he had enlisted.

I'd like to think we we're all surprised by that, but looking back, I think that Farkle and Zay already knew, I think only Maya and I didn't know.

Your mom reacted in the same way that she always does when your dad does something particularly stupid and brave - as those two usually meet together when it comes to him - that could get him hurt. She told him that if he went through with it, she'd never speak to him again.

This was about a month before graduation. I had taken a spot at NYU in its ever so convenient undecided undergraduate program. Farkle was going to M.I.T taking whatever classes one does in order to become the founder and CEO of a Fortune 500 company that specializes in Applied Sciences. Zay had decided to go back home to the University of Texas - Austin to get a business degree. And Maya, so incredibly modest Maya, had taken a full scholarship offer to the Art Institute of Chicago.

Now I'm sure that eventually you'll know all there is to know about art, but just in case your mom is still doing that thing where she downplays every incredible thing she does, I want you to know how big of a deal that was, how damn incredible that was.

I don't think I've ever been more proud of anything your mom has done then when she got accepted into one of the top five ranking art schools in the entire world.

That is, until you. But that's a recurring theme, as I'm sure you've already figured out.

The point is, we we're all going our separate ways for the first time since middle school, every single one of us, that was other than Lucas.

That's why I'm telling you all this Grace, it's important for you to know where everyone was in their lives, how everyone but me seemed to have it all figured out, in order for you to understand what came next, in order for you to understand that this was the true beginning of the end.

I'm going to get to your parent's love story, I swear that I am, at least the parts that I know, but before I can tell you theirs, I have to tell you about mine, mine and your father's.

I'd leave room for a significant pause of disbelief, but I'm a firm believer in ripping off the bandage, and since there's a decent chance I'll never actually send you these letters, nor are your parents ever going to tell you about me, and even if they do it will be in the context of me being your parents old friend, and not your dad's first love, I think it's pretty safe to assume that bandage ripping is necessary here.

Before there was ever a Maya and Lucas, there was a Riley and Lucas. Well, technically your mom dated him first for a total of ten seconds before I ever met him, but I was sitting on his lap five minutes after that, but that's not really important to anything, and I'm really trying hard not to confuse you here.

Lucas and I, were well, an unofficial Lucas and I all throughout middle school, and the beginning of high school, but then sophomore year happened, and we just happened too. We had both, okay well I, had grown out of my awkward phase, or at least the most awkward version of me that I've ever been, we we're both ready, and that was just kind of that.

One day he was walking me to my locker telling me a story about what had happened in Chemistry, one of the only classes we didn't have together, and the next day he was walking me to my locker telling me a story about what had happened in Chemistry while holding my hand.

And we we're good, really good, we rarely argued about anything, and even when we did, he always let me win. He made me nervous even so many years on, and never once laughed at me. He was without a doubt, my favorite person in the entire world. Everything with Lucas was just so _easy,_ Grace. There was nothing about being with him that felt unnatural, or wrong, and I was sure, if I could spend my whole life just talking to him, that would be everything.

That should have been my sign that we we're all wrong. It shouldn't have been easy Grace, if there was one thing that my father has managed to teach me it is that nothing worthwhile comes easy. And everything with Lucas came easy, because that's how he was, easy-going, okay with everything, and that was the problem.

I cared too much, and he didn't care enough. That's not to say that he didn't give me everything, that he didn't reciprocate all the love that I gave him, that's just to say that there was always something more to be had, something more than what was between the two of us, and he knew that, while I couldn't understand that.

I couldn't understand that when our relationship started deteriorating a year and a half in, and I didn't understand that when our relationship ended the summer between junior and senior year, and I sure as hell didn't understand that, that day we we're sitting in Topanga's and Lucas was telling us that he had joined the Navy.

Because that was wrong. Because everyone else was leaving, but Lucas was supposed to be staying, it was supposed to be Riley and Lucas, and Lucas was going to be the one who stayed in New York with me, because he loved me as much as I loved him, and now that he'd had some space to realize that, we we're going to get back together, we we're going to go to college together, and we we're going to spend the rest of our lives together.

I like to think that that's the closest I've ever been to delusional, the days before your dad told us he had enlisted to become a Navy SEAL.

Just like your mom reacted the same way that she always does, by threatening him because he threatened what she knew, I reacted the same way that I always did, I figured out a way to live with the worry, and I told him he was going to be a hero, that he could do anything he wanted.

I'm not sure if by that moment what your father really wanted was your mother, but what I do know is that that was the first time your dad went after your mom after something like this happened. He'd never done it before, not when he rode Tombstone the Bull, and not in all the instances that came afterward. He let her have her space, and simply waited for her to talk to him about it after she knew that he was perfectly fine.

Except this time he went after her.

I don't know what happened during that ten minute conversation, but when they did, I could feel that something had shifted, not something monumental, not something lasting, but something had shifted, just for the briefest of moments.

I know that, because I never heard your mom threaten to quit speaking to your dad, again.

Your dad left for basic training, because your dad has never been bad at anything in his entire life, after passing the SEAL Challenge and going through the SEAL Competitive Physical Screening Test. I'm not even going to talk to you about the fact that I still can't do more than five push-ups.

Your dad left a month after graduation, Zay had left a week before him, and for two months it was just like it used to be, before your dad moved to New York, just Maya, Farkle, and I in a city far bigger than we knew what to do with.

I think it was the last time, Maya and I, we're still truly Maya and I.

Most of this story doesn't really start till a lot later, five years later actually, when Maya and I are twenty-two, and you're dad is twenty-three. But that day was one of those defining moments, it was what set everything in motion.

I think a part of me truly believes that if your dad hadn't made that decision, if he hadn't chosen to join the Navy, if he hadn't gone through what he did, he never would've ended up with your mom. I'm not saying that to hurt you, I'm not saying that to make you think that there wasn't something between them before he joined the Navy, and I'm not saying that because it makes me feel better.

I'm saying that because I really believe it's true, I think that without the Navy, Lucas would've eventually found his way back to me, and me to him, because Lucas is the kind of man that does what's right, and I don't think Pre-Navy Lucas would've been able to have a relationship with your mom, while knowing how I felt about him. But Pre-Navy Lucas and Post-Navy Lucas had redefined their idea of right and wrong, and maybe I had a little bit too. Because just as much as we pulled away from each other, we fell back together.

We had, in between seventeen and twenty-one, in those four years, we'd both been with other people, but we often found our way back to each other. I hope you're old enough to understand what I mean by that, because I'm not explaining it, and if you aren't, then just go ahead and pretend like that means Lucas was walking me to my college class while holding my hand.

But something changed during the time that he was deployed, because he started to disappear even when he wasn't overseas. Sometimes it was only mentally, just spacing out of conversations, or on his cell phone, and other times it was physically, he'd leave and when I'd ask, he'd just tell me that he had 'work things.'

Lucas was changing, he wasn't the same man that I knew, but he also wasn't completely different, which made what was happening so much more confusing. I'd expect one thing, and sometimes I'd get what I expected, but other times I'd get the complete opposite.

I think it's safe to say now that in those days that your dad was gone, he was with your mom, but I don't know when that started. When he stopped coming back to New York first thing after he came back from deployment, and started going to Chicago. All I know is that I'm sure neither of your parents had voluntarily spent time alone together before around then, and while I wish I could tell you what changed, it's just another one of those things I never bothered to learn.

That's the beginning Grace, and don't ever let people lie to you, the beginning is always the most important part. Everything that happens next, is a direct result of it.

All my love,

Aunt Riley


	3. operation young love (calls of a siren)

Dear Grace,

Maya and I had a schedule. A schedule that neither of us under any circumstances were allowed to deviate from, because she lived in Chicago, and I lived in New York, and in my head, I still lived in a place where Lucas was coming home to me, and it was Maya and I forever.

So we had a schedule. There was a morning phone call every single day, no matter how hung over we were, or how badly we wanted to sleep in, or if we had to miss half of a class to do it, your mom and I called each other at nine a.m. every single day. Then there was a Thursday and Monday night Facetime. And we spent one weekend every month together, rotating between Chicago and New York. We had a schedule, and I liked it. I depended on it.

I depended on Maya.

And I was depending on Maya, that third weekend of November, in 2023. Depending on her to be in New York, and depending on her to help me understand why Lucas was suddenly so checked out. We hadn't been together in two years, not in the way I wanted us to be, it seemed like we had ended for good after he'd turned twenty, but he was always there.

But lately he hadn't been, lately he was more into his phone than me, lately he was more into spending time with other people than with me, and that didn't make any sense. It didn't make any sense because I was the only person Lucas even knew in New York outside of his family, everyone else had left for college, and none of his Navy friends lived in the city.

I had by then convinced myself of the romantic notion that he came home to New York for me, and not simply because that's where his family was, and when he spent ten months out of the year deployed, he'd never seen any real reason to move out of his family's house.

I need you to understand something, Grace, growing up I lived in a place called Rileytown. In Rileytown everything was good, and happy, and no one hurt anyone, and everyone got what they wanted, because life wasn't just fair, it was giving.

Rileytown existed because of all that I was growing up, and at twenty-two, I still had a hell of a lot of growing up to do, Graceland, because I was naive, and innocent, and sheltered.

I got really lucky where the whole life thing was concerned, I have two incredibly successful, two incredibly loving and in love parents, who are selfless and guiding, and because of them there was nothing I ever wanted that I couldn't have, not because they automatically gave it to me, but because that's what they raised me to believe, that nothing was impossible, and that the world was good.

And if that wasn't enough I have a little brother, a little brother who is inside and out, most definitely better than I am. Auggie, he's going to be a doctor, and he's going to save lives, and I don't know if people get any better than Auggie.

The point is, Grace, the closest I ever got to anything dark or unfair, or anything that even remotely pointed to the fact that not everything in life was perfect, was your mom. And your mom, she managed to shelter me from the worst parts of her life. I know she did.

I need you to understand this, because I need you to understand that it wasn't delusion that had me holding onto Lucas, it wasn't him stringing me along, it was just who I was. Lucas and I were going to be the next Cory and Topanaga, Lucas and I were going to be the one's that made it, because that was just what I believed, that was just what I was so positive that I knew.

And I wasn't crazy, it wasn't just this idea that I had about the two of us, looking back now, I know. All those times we fell back together, wasn't destiny, wasn't because we needed each other more than anything else, wasn't because there was some reason, some road that was always leading us back together, it was plain and simply because it was easy, because it was comfortable.

Because Lucas didn't even begin to know where to find something else, and I wanted him so much, because he was the only thing I was certain about back then.

Everyone else had their lives figured out, Grace, since we were seventeen everyone else had their lives figured out, and just like when I was seventeen, I was finishing my undergraduate, I needed to pick a major, and I still had no damn idea what I was going to do with myself, with my life.

I was lost, I had no idea who I was, and I had got it into my head, that who I was, was a girl that was meant to love Lucas, meant to be his wife, because I wanted some kind of purpose, and I decided that he was going to be it.

And so I was going to figure out, on that November weekend, at the birthday party we had thrown for him actually, both Zay and Farkle and some of his Navy friends had flown down, with Maya's help, exactly what the hell his problem was.

Except, that mission had gotten sidetracked about halfway into the party when my Uncle Josh, who was really more of a brother to me and an uncle to Auggie, considering he was only three years older than me, and the only guy besides your father - we'll get into the whole Texas debacle some other time, it's surprisingly irrelevant to this entire story - that your mother ever had a crush on. I know this because he got a nickname 'Uncle Boing' and it held a strange resemblance to one of Lucas' plethora of nicknames as assigned by Maya, being 'Bucky McBoing Boing,' walked in.

Before I go on, I'm going to try and do justice to your mom, and how she looked that night, because your mom has a hell of a lot going for her in the looks department, and I think you should understand the importance of the fact that there was something about your mom that was different than night.

She had always been beautiful, but that night she was stunning.

Her dress was a light blue, almost powder blue, and as if your mom didn't already stick out in a crowd, the straps on it were thin, and the cut was low, and it hugged her in every place imaginable, and it was the kind of dress only your mom could make look classy.

She wore boots, thinking about our childhood, I don't think I've ever seen your mom wear heels, at least not the kind of heels that weren't connected to boots, she'd always loved her boots, and she didn't sacrifice them for a dress.

In fact it was the brown ankle boots that made the dress, it was the way her lips were coated a nude color, the way her hair was piled on the back of her head in a messy bun, not purposefully like that, but haphazardly done with the hair tie on her wrist because she had gotten hot from dancing.

There wasn't a single person in that club, man or woman, that hadn't noticed her, and that held true for Uncle Josh.

Maya had had a crush on him for years, but it was a childhood crush, and I had dismissed it in the way that most people dismissed my crush on Lucas during middle school. Josh had dismissed her crush in the same way all those years ago.

But Maya wasn't fourteen anymore, she was twenty-two, and Josh was twenty-five, and it was obvious from the way that he was staring at her, his eyes half lidded, his bottom lip caught between his teeth, as he watched Maya lift her arms in the arm, her hips twirling as she danced carelessly with someone who I'd later learn was one of Lucas' team members, that he'd never been more aware of how old she was, he'd been hit over the head with it.

Your mom was like that, hitting people over the head, surprising people with who she was, catching them off guard just when they thought they had her all figured out.

So that was the new mission, get Uncle Josh to dance with Maya so they could fall in love, and she would get her happy ending too. The mission was simple, because there were no actual plan, and I recruited Farkle, Zay, and Lucas in my mission.

I probably should've noticed how reluctant Lucas was to partake, but I don't think even Lucas realized at the time how less than thrilled he was about it.

"I want her." Uncle Josh's statement was a bold declaration that made me smile so wide, that it actually hurt, which was a feat in itself considering how large my smiles tended to get.

Lucas had hit him, not a friendly smack on the back of the head, but a fist to the arm, and a pointed glare. "Show some respect."

I don't think Uncle Josh meant it in the way your dad had automatically assumed, but I had chalked it up to Lucas' protectiveness that had seemed to magnify ever since he had been deployed for the first time.

Whatever it was, I don't think anyone was more surprised than me, after endless argument over how we'd get Uncle Josh to go up to Maya - who he had never had a problem approaching before - got us nowhere, that your father was finally the one who took charge.

"Hey Maya!" Lucas had called loudly, but it was still a surprise when your mom's head snapped over quickly, like she had literally been waiting for his call, considering she was at least half a room away, surrounded by bodies, with blaring music surrounding her. I could barely hear Lucas, and he was right next to me.

Your mom had slipped out of the crowd easily, walking over, still slightly breathless from dancing, and half a laugh in her voice, as she took seat next to Lucas. "Hey birthday Huckleberry, we drinking or what?"

"I must have left my moonshine back at the farm." Your dad replied easily, he'd always been able to keep up with her unlike anyone else I knew. "You remember Josh right?"

"Uncle Boing!" Maya smiled widely no signs of the girl that used to literally jump on his back at the sight of him, she hadn't even noticed him till Lucas had pointed him out, "I didn't know you and Ranger Rick rode tractors together?"

When it became clear that the roles had been reversed, and Uncle Josh was now the one incapable of doing anything coherent or likeable or even remotely charming around Maya, I stepped in.

"I invited Uncle Josh." I told Maya as I smiled at her with my mouth, but glared at her with my eyes, letting her to know that this was not the time to be playing hard to get. "I thought it would be nice to catch up."

"Of course." Maya nodded, "You're taking care of my girl over at NYU right?"

"Always." Uncle Josh had responded finally finding his voice, "She was my niece first after all."

"I like when people fight over me." I had interjected.

"What do you say, Maya?" Uncle Josh had asked, "I hear the dance floor's neutral territory. We can call a truce. And I can get you that drink you were asking about."

"I'll take a dance," Maya had nodded standing up, and winking at me, "Hey Riley, you aren't going to let the birthday boy sit here all by himself are you?"

Maya had been helping me, even when my mission had changed, her mission hadn't, because that was what your mom's mission had always been, making me happy, even if she had to sacrifice her own happiness for it.

I wonder when she figured out that that wasn't a way to live life, she had definitely figured it out before me.

"Of course not." I had responded and looked at Lucas. "Lucas?"

"Yeah, course." He had stood up, "Let's dance."

It wasn't the first time I had danced with Lucas, but all the times before had been a different kind of dancing, line dancing, and middle school dancing, there was always a significant distance between us, and this wasn't it.

This was hot, sweaty bodies pressed against one another, people grinding to music they probably had never even heard before, and I didn't know how to do it. I was well aware of how out of my element I was, and when I was out of my element, I always looked to Maya to teach me, to tell me what to do.

But when I looked over at Maya, she wasn't paying any attention to me, instead she had one arm tossed carelessly around the back of Uncle Josh's neck, her body moved easily in time with his, just as easily as his lips moved in time with hers.

Lucas' hand had found my shoulder, and when I looked up at him, he had asked with an expression I didn't really understand at the time. "Are you okay with that?"

At the time I had responded that I was, but looking back, I probably should've asked instead, if he was okay with it.

Because if I had asked, I would've noticed the way Lucas had stuck closer to Farkle for the rest of the night than anyone else, I would've noticed the way that even though he was interacting with everyone his eyes were always on the blonde beauty on the dance floor, and I would've noticed the way that his right hand was clenched tightly.

And if I had noticed all those things, I would've noticed the most important thing of all. Maya had spent all night on the dance floor with Uncle Josh, her lips attached to his more than they weren't, and yet when the night ended, it wasn't Uncle Josh, that Maya left with. Your mother had left with your father.

All my love,

Aunt Riley


	4. to live by your mistake (a truth, a lie)

Dear Grace,

Your father was always good at keeping secrets. He wasn't the kind of man that particularly enjoyed keeping them, but he was capable of it, people confided in him, and he kept their secrets. Eventually, he got so good at it, that keeping secrets was the way he made a living.

He was a Navy SEAL, special forces, he ran intelligence operations, and he did what Lucas knew how to do best, he took care of people.

So while I knew what Lucas did, I never really knew what Lucas did, and because he spent most of the year doing whatever it was that he did, that was the biggest part of his life that I was missing out on.

And I worried about that constantly, worried about what he was doing, if he was okay, not being able to trust that he knew how to take care of himself, terrified of being left in the dark.

That worry often times made me someone I didn't recognize, someone that made me feel crazy, someone who could only focused on Lucas and if he was okay.

I made a lot of mistakes Grace, but this mistake was your father's, and eventually your mother's, this mistake was theirs.

Lucas let me worry.

In some ways, it's my fault. Because your mom and I are polar opposites, in every way but one. Both of us are quick to help the people we love, but reluctant to lean on them. I never told anyone about my bully in middle school - which by that way, Grace, if anything like that ever happens to you, talk to your parents, I know by then they won't be your first choice of people to go to, but trust them, trust that they are going to be mad that you kept it from them, and trust that they'll love you enough to get you through it - and your mom never truly told anyone how bad it got for her at home.

So I don't think Lucas ever understood the grand scope of my worry for him, of how hard it was to function knowing that I couldn't see him for myself, couldn't know with absolute certainty that everything was okay, I don't think he understood how much easier he could've made my life if he had simply sent me a text message saying he was home, and he was safe.

What idiot doesn't send that text message?

Grace, you make sure to give him hell the day you forget to text him that you'll be late for curfew, and he's busy laying down the law. You make sure he knows that he's a hypocrite.

Actually, don't do that, I know you're dad, at least I did, and I have a fairly good idea of what kind of dad he's going to be, and somehow I don't think he'll take that so well coming from you.

Someone has to be the disciplinarian, and don't get me wrong, you're mom's tough, but she's also a whole lot of bark with absolutely no bite when it comes to the people she loves, and there's no doubt in my mind you are who she loves most, Graceland.

And the people that love us they need to know that we're safe, and if there was one thing that your dad had to know with absolute certainty was that I loved him, I loved him enough to always make sure my phone was charged, always make sure that I wouldn't miss the moment that he'd call to tell me that he was fine, that he was coming home.

It wasn't the first time that it had happened, that Lucas had come home without telling anyone, not me, not Farkle, not even his mother - in the eight years I had known him, I hadn't realized or learned yet just how complicated his own family life was - that he was home, there was only one person that he had told.

It was your mom and I's weekly Thursday night Facetime, I had my cell phone pulled out, and was just waiting for your mom to answer the call, and I ignored the fact that she was ten minutes late when she answered.

"Hey Riles!" Maya had greeted cheerfully as she sunk down on her bed in front of her computer screen, it was mid-December, and it was obvious that she'd just come home from somewhere, as she was still wearing her red winter coat, and dark-washed jeans, and her face was still flushed from the cold of Chicago.

"I'm thinking we Christmas at Farkle's this year, because if I have to spend another day singing 'Ava Morgan Stern' Maya I'm going to lose all my Christmas cheer, and I love Christmas, I love that for once everyone is as cheery as me, and are you going somewhere?" I had launched right into the current problem of the day, and had to cut myself off when I had noticed the suitcases that barely left Maya any space on her bed.

"What?" Maya had asked confused looking at the bed then shaking her head, "Nah, Ranger Rick isn't much of a packer, or un-packer for that matter, and he's still got most of James' stuff, so their combined shit is everywhere."

The confusion set in immediately, not only because I had no idea who James was, but because there was only one person that Maya called Ranger Rick, and that was Lucas, except it made no sense for Lucas to be in Chicago, he had no reason to be in Chicago, not to mention the last time I had heard from him, he was on an operation in Sudan, where ever that was, because in all the liberties my father took in my education, he never thought I'd need to know about Sudan. The point was, Lucas was not in Chicago.

Except I could hear his voice, I could physically feel ten years worth of weight of worry melt off of me, and there was no way Maya was talking to herself.

"Would it kill you to actually have some real food in your fridge? What kind of twelve year old still eats lunchables?"

"What are you not used to containers of bite-sized snacking?"

"I was in Sudan not space, short-stack."

"Speaking of, am I tall enough to go to space? Because my eyesight is totally up to par, and-"

"Lucas?" I had cut off loudly, because none of it made sense, Grace, not the fact that Lucas was home, and not the fact that Lucas was in Chicago and not the fact that neither Lucas nor Maya had told me that he was home.

And then there he was, Lucas, my Lucas, at least he looked like my Lucas, he had the same sea-foam green eyes, the same brown hair that was cropped short, the same lean muscled body as he leaned down into the screen, behind Maya, and yet somehow, he wasn't my Lucas anymore, I just hadn't noticed it.

"Hey Riley." His smile didn't reach his eyes anymore, it hadn't truly reached his eyes since he was twenty, since the first time he was deployed, it hadn't.

I hope his smile reaches his eyes now, Graceland, I hope that for you more than anything. I'd like to think that your mom put the light back in his eyes, but back then, when I had the chance to, I didn't even stop to look, stop to notice. So just in case she didn't quite manage to heal him all the way, I hope that you managed to, I hope that you managed to heal both of them.

I hope that the smile he smiled the first time he looked at you, and all the times after, reaches everywhere. I hope that in some impossible way, it managed to reach me too.

"You're back." I had managed to get out, "How come you didn't tell me you're back? Are you okay? How could you not tell me you're back?"

"I'm not back, Riley." Lucas had responded easily - sometimes I wonder when lying to me became second nature to him - and instantly, "I literally flew in like fifteen minutes ago, we just got here, that's why Maya was late to Facetime. It's just a layover, anyway, I'm going back to base tomorrow, and I'm being deployed again day after that. It's just a stop."

"So what's why you're in New York, and not Chicago." I had smiled, because as easy as it was for your dad to lie to me, Grace, it was just as easy for me to accept his lie. We had lost the most important part of any relationship a long time ago, the ability to communicate honestly.

"Exactly." Maya had nodded, "I picked up Huckleberry, we came back to talk to you, and I'll have him back home by curfew."

I don't know when that started, when your dad's secrets had started to become your mom's secrets, when she had learned to lie to me too.

I just know that they were both changing.

There was a quiet maturity to your dad that hadn't been there before. That's not to say that he was immature before, he had always been a couple steps ahead of us, it just wasn't his first instinct to lash out every time someone pissed him off anymore, nor was he one to walk away from a fight. There was something about him that wasn't conflicted anymore, and I don't think that was the Navy. I don't think your dad had ever been more sure of anything than your mom.

And your mom, god your mom, Grace, she laughed more. She had relaxed in a way that she had never been relaxed before. Before, every time she allowed herself to feel even a semblance of happiness, she reminded herself that she was jaded, reminded herself that she was going to find a way to screw it up. I'm sorry I screwed up the part of your mom's happy ending where she got the guy and kept the best friend, Grace.

Earlier I told you that I worried that I was missing the biggest part of Lucas' life while he was away. I was right, but I was also wrong.

I was missing the biggest part of Lucas' life, but I was also missing the biggest part of Maya's, the part where they were falling in love.

All my love,

Aunt Riley


	5. some hearts (signs we didn't see)

Dear Grace,

Sometimes I think I should've put it all together at my graduation, or at least in the days leading up to my graduation.

Maya was there first, she'd flown down a week early to be with me, and if I hadn't seen the differences in her before, I could see them then.

Her smile was so much easier, her first instinct when someone wanted to talk about her wasn't to turn the conversation around because she wasn't used to people paying attention to her, she paid attention to Auggie in more than just a 'hey kid' kind of way, she actually bothered to hear what he had to say, and she held herself differently.

She was just a little bit taller - though she hadn't gotten even a millimeter taller - when she walked, her phone was never two seconds from her hand but she never paid it a single attention unless a chime went off, which was done purposefully because for everyone else her phone was on vibrate, then she would look at her phone, first with almost worry, and then there was something in her face, the soft smile, the look of peace, that settled it for me.

We had been in my childhood bedroom, still the same as it had been in middle school, but the pair of us were so different, and her phone had chimed, and she had snatched it up, and I watched the slight agitation on her face that the sound had formed, change to content, and that was when I knew with absolute certainty.

"You have a boyfriend!" I had declared.

Sometimes I think I should've recognized that look, because every time my phone used to ring, I used to worry if it was Lucas or someone calling to tell me that something bad had happened to Lucas, and the instant knowledge that he was fine, or it wasn't about him calmed me.

I should've realized that it was Lucas, but the idea was so unfathomable to me, I had known that Maya had liked him in middle school, that he had felt something for her, but we had started dating in high school, and Maya had always seemed so happy for us, it had always seemed like Maya and Lucas had just liked how different the one was from the other, and then they had moved on.

Now I realize that Maya was just taking her turn in the same cycle we had been going through since middle school. Riley likes Lucas, so Maya pretends she doesn't. Maya likes Lucas, so Riley pretends she doesn't. And so on and so forth, till Maya at some point decided in sophomore year that she didn't want to do that anymore, till she had us all convinced that she only liked Lucas as a friend.

"Yeah." Maya said after a long moment, "I do."

"That's why you've been so weird lately!" I had sat up in excitement, and then I was upset, "How could you not tell me, Maya? We tell each other everything. How could you not tell me such a big thing?"

"Because you've been so worried about what you're going to do after you finish your year off after graduation, it didn't really seem that important. Not to mention it's so new, I didn't want to tell you till there was something really to say."

Your mom is a hell of a liar, Grace, better than your dad, and that's saying something, she's been doing it her whole life, but there are things that she can't lie about, the things that are important to her, that she's passionate about, because there's so very few things she feels that way about, so I knew that this was different.

She'd never had a real boyfriend before, so it was already different, but this was even more so, this was something that had the ability to change her life on a fundamental level.

I wish I would have remembered that when it was most important.

I would've pressed on that day, maybe I would've managed to get her to tell me about Lucas then and there, and maybe things would've been different, except I didn't, because I somehow managed to recognize something else in her face, something I'd never seen before, I recognized that Maya didn't _want_ to tell me.

For a long time after the split, I resented that, resented how much she didn't want to talk to me about it, while I was still telling her everything, she couldn't even bother to tell me about the things that meant something to her, and it took me years to realize two things.

By then, I hadn't been telling her everything either, I couldn't remember the last time I had talked to her about Lucas, I mean really talked about him, about how confused I was, about how I was still in love with him after all this time, about how I didn't understand how it seemed so easy for him to go right back to being just my friend. And I also realized that she didn't want to tell me, not because she didn't want to share that part of her life with me, but because she didn't want to lose me.

Hindsight has a way kicking a person's ass, Grace.

The point was, I didn't press, and we moved on like nothing ever happened, and I should have realized then, that Maya was dating Lucas.

But I didn't, and looking back I don't feel especially stupid about that, I feel especially stupid, that three days after, the day before my graduation, the day it might have been the most obvious of all, I never put the pieces together.

It was always up in the air about whether or not your dad would make it down for my graduation, his deployment was meant to end soon, but I had no idea the exact date, and when Maya said she had something to do that day, I didn't think much about it.

She had family in New York, your grandma Katie, and your grandpa Shawn, and she was friends with people that I wasn't friends with, and there were people in New York that were in her life but outside of mine, and that was okay.

Except she wasn't going to see any of those people. Now, I know that she went to the airport, she went to the airport to get Lucas, to be the first important thing he saw after coming back from war, to see with her own eyes that he was okay, to be where she wanted to be the most.

We were meeting up for dinner, Farkle, Zay - who had flown down mostly because Lucas had, our friendship was still there but it had been one of the many affected by time and distance - and I were already there, and my first tip off should've been that Lucas and Maya showed up together.

They walked through the door at the same time, with Lucas guiding a little boy, no older than six years old in front of him, his hands on his shoulders as he stuck close to him.

I felt the familiar urge to tear out of my seat and run to him, the familiar relief at the knowledge that he was okay, that he was safe taking over me, but somehow it felt different at the same time.

Lucas gently handed the little boy off to Maya, who easily went to her, wrapping his arms around the back of her neck with familiarity, that, was my second sign. He knew Maya, when none of the rest of knew the little boy.

"Thank you." I had said softly as I hugged Lucas, and I wasn't sure if I was thanking him for coming to my graduation, or if I was thanking some higher power for making sure that he was still okay, that despite everything that had changed, his hugs still felt the same.

"You know, statistically speaking, you should be dead." Farkle had told Lucas as he hugged him just a little bit tighter than I had.

"Don't bet on your life, buddy." Lucas responded as he hugged Zay as well before introducing the little boy who was already making his way back to him, "This is James."

I had heard that name before, Grace, I had heard it what felt like a lifetime ago, just in passing, but I remembered the fact that I had heard it in passing not by Lucas, but by Maya. And there was my third sign.

"James, these are my friends Riley, Farkle, and Zay." Lucas had said quietly as we all slid back into our seats, James strategically placed between him and Maya, "Riley's going to graduate from college tomorrow."

James' eyes - a beautiful hazel color, one I had never seen before, but reminded me of the color of whiskey - flickered to me for a second, before he smiled shyly, and dropped his head back down to lean against Lucas' arm.

"So how long are you here for?" Farkle had asked after we had all ordered.

"A couple of months I think." Lucas had responded his eyes flickering over to Maya, almost as if she knew his schedule better than he did, and then back to Farkle. "My deployment was over anyway, I just asked to leave a week ahead of time."

"That was really sweet of you, Lucas." I had smiled.

"I didn't want to be anywhere else."

Sometimes, in those days afterwards, when I woke up some days enraged with your mom and dad, and other days just simply hurt, I wondered if your dad had meant he didn't want to be anywhere but supporting me, or if he hadn't wanted to be anywhere other than where Maya was, and that just so happened to be at the same place as me.

"Are you staying with Farkle, Lucas?" I had wondered because he hadn't walked in with any suitcases, and as far as I was aware, he had only just gotten here.

As it was, Lucas didn't really live anywhere, he was home for two months out of the year, at most, so he was either with his mom, as his parents had gotten divorced during sophomore year, or Farkle, or Zay if he had decided to go to Texas, it had never made any sense for him to really live somewhere.

I think about how sad that must have been for him, to go off to war, only to realize there was nowhere really to come home to. How much peace it must have brought your dad when realized that he had somewhere to go home to, to your mom.

He had shaken his head, "I'm staying with my parents. James likes it there."

Maybe that should've been my fourth sign, it was odd that Lucas wasn't staying at Farkle's, he almost always stayed at Farkle's, and it was odd that Maya hadn't chosen to stay with me or mom. She had claimed that she needed space to work on her painting so she had gotten a hotel room.

Maya hadn't gotten a hotel room, because by then their relationship was serious, far more serious than my relationship had ever been with Lucas. Maya was staying at Lucas' mom's house with him, in fact, she'd been comfortable enough to be there all week without him.

I wanted to ask how he knew James, why he had brought him along, but for the first time, Lucas' business, somehow didn't feel like my business, and that was insanely scary feeling, knowing that there were things that Maya was keeping from me, and feeling like I couldn't ask Lucas things.

I need you to understand something, Grace, I had nothing figured out at the start of this, not at the end of senior year of high school, and I certainly had nothing figured out during my senior year of undergraduate school.

I wasn't even going to graduate school, I had a degree in business administration and education, and yet I still had no real idea what the hell I was doing. So grad school became a forgone conclusion and I made the decision to take a year off and figure things out, or at least make an attempt to do so.

But even in that year off I had no idea what I was going to do.

My life was falling apart Grace, it seemed like not only was I going nowhere, but it also was starting to feel like I had no one, I was losing my best friends.

If only I had known how right I was about losing two of my best friends, how most of the events that set it in motion was Maya and Lucas' doing, their lies, their secrets, but the most important part of it was my doing, my ultimatum.

All my love,

Aunt Riley


	6. boxed in (just have hope)

Dear Grace,

Maya and I never fought, we just didn't do it, until we did.

And when we did, we didn't fight about little things, even when it started as a little thing, it was really about a big thing, we fought about beliefs, and loyalty, and choices. We fought about things that could make or break us, but we always come back to one another.

We fought, and when we did, we fought with everything we had.

"What do you mean you're leaving early?" I had asked your mom in a calm voice when I felt anything but two days after my graduation when she'd let me know she was leaving the next day.

She was supposed to stay for another two weeks, that was the plan, Grace, and she had to stick to the plan, because that was all I was sure of anymore, that Maya was going to stay for two weeks, and then I was going to go stay with her in Chicago for a month. I didn't know what I was doing, and when I didn't know what I was doing, I looked at Maya for guidance, because she always knew what she was doing, because she was always sure.

"I have to go Riles, I'm really sorry." She had replied and even in my anger I could see how genuinely guilty she felt. "This week and a half have been amazing, and I'm so excited for you to come stay with me, but I have to go home. There's this art show that I need to go to because I-"

"Ignoring the fact that you go to college in Chicago, and home is in New York, you are seriously ditching me to go to an art show?" I had raised my voice.

A little advice for the future, Grace, when you get in fights with your parents, don't raise your voice, at least don't be the first one to raise your voice, the first one to raise their voice automatically gets the blame for starting the fight. It's the rules of fightology.

"It's not just any art show, Riley, that's what I'm trying to tell you. They have this painting there that-"

"That what?" I was enraged, Grace, and I know that sounds like it all happened fast and it did, because anger comes in a lot of forms, and my angry is usually silent, I get silent and I stomp off, and I shove it down and ignore it till I don't feel it anymore. I guess all that method really did for me was hide all the anger I had been feeling towards Maya, even from myself. "What's so special about a damn painting, Maya? Can this painting talk to you? Has this painting known you for your entire life? Has this painting been there for you through absolutely everything? Because I have! I've always been there, and right now I need you, and somehow, being there for me seems like the last thing you want to do!"

"I'm trying, Riley!" Maya had yelled back as for the first time in the entire course of our lives she burst into tears, I had seen your mom cry before, Grace, but never like this, never like I had dropped the last ounce into a scale and had finally been the one to tip it over. "God, I am trying so hard to hold it all together! To take care of all of you, but I want things too, Riley! I have dreams too! I can't spend my whole damn life taking care of you, at some point I need to start taking care of me!"

When we were little girls, your mom and I experienced something that my parents called sympathy pain. If your mom got a paper-cut, my finger would suddenly start to hurt, if I skinned my knee, Maya's knee was killing her. We were dependent in a lot of ways, so dependent on each other that we felt sympathy pain, and looking back at it, sometimes it might not have always been a good thing.

Your mom saw it as her job to take care of me, to protect me, to always know just a little better than me, because that's who I needed her to be. She never got to be the one who needed sympathy or help, she never got to be the one that was unavailable or hurt, she always had to be there when I needed her.

And I saw it as my job to make sure she was happy. To provide her with some kind of safe haven, to make sure she knew that she was loved, that she was wanted. So I never got to be the one who felt lonely, never got to be the one whose family just wasn't perfect at every moment of every day, I never got to be the one that didn't believe in the best possible outcome.

We had our roles, and we had never let the other deviate from them in twenty-two years. And that was what our fight was about, Grace.

It wasn't about where Maya chose to call home, or about me wanting her to stay, or about paintings, or anything else. It was about the fact that we were both confined in our roles, except we were both different.

Maya was finally getting everything she'd ever wanted, her life was good, she was happy, and she wanted to believe that things could stay that way, she wanted to hope. My life was falling apart, I didn't know who I was, or what I wanted, and I just knew that I was lost, and I just wasn't prepared for anything. Our roles had reversed, because we had grown up, but we were still trying to shove each other back into the boxes that we had put ourselves in all those years ago.

"Aren't you doing that already?" I had felt such resentment towards her, such resentment towards the fact that she knew exactly what she wanted and she was no longer afraid to take it. "Aren't you doing that when you hide things from me? When you miss our daily phone calls? When you don't text me back? What happened to Riley and Maya forever?"

"Riley and Maya forever, not every single second of every single day! Shit Riley, what do you want me to do, sew my skin to yours?"

"Ignore the fact that that is kind of freaking disgusting, no! I want you to be here, Maya! I want you to be here when I need you, I want to say 'bay window' and it happens, and everything is okay! Except I don't even think you'd show up anymore if I asked you to, because despite how little you know about what's going on with me, I know even less about what's going on with you! It's like you have this whole other life, and I'm not a part of it."

Maya didn't reply to that for a long moment, she just stood there, her hands on her hips, looking down, as her shoulders shook, like it was all she could do not to break down then and there, and I wish I had known how much pain your mom was in.

I wish I had known how intense the pain, the fear, the overwhelming amount of sheer emotions she was feeling in that moment, because I would've been able to tell her that I was feeling all those same things. And it would've been the first time in a long time we weren't just pretending like we were on common ground, we actually were.

Except I didn't, all I saw was how your mom had taken a moment that was supposed to be about me, and made it about her. And that was selfish, Grace, because I had once again shoved her into that box, that box where she was the one who wasn't allowed to feel pain, because she was supposed to take care of me when I felt it. It was selfish to her, but it was also selfish to me, because I had shoved myself right back into my box.

"I have to go." I had said quietly because I didn't get to be the one that screamed at Maya, she got that enough from everyone else, so we had to be good, she had to know that I loved her, that I wanted her around, so I didn't get to be upset with her.

So I didn't tell her to leave, instead I made the decision to leave, and I went to the only other place I could think to go.

I went to Lucas.

That day was one of the hardest, Grace, that fight had felt a lot different that any other ones, that fight had felt like it was a long time coming, and yet neither of us had said everything that we needed to say, in fact we hadn't really said anything at all, but it was lonely.

Arguing with the one person that was always supposed to be there was lonely, showing up at Lucas' house only to find that I had just missed him was lonely, knowing with absolute certainty, for the first time in my life, that this was something that couldn't be changed, only altered, was lonely, a kind of lonely I had never felt before.

It was also one of the best days, Graceland. Because I was reminded of one thing when I eventually wandered my way to Farkle's apartment, when he opened the door, took one look at me, and then was pulling me into his arms whispering words of comfort, I was reminded that loneliness is only a feeling, it's only a state of being.

It's awful, and horrible, and I'd never wish it on anyone, but it only exists in my head, and that's powerful, but friendship is powerful too, and as far as friends went, even then, even now, after these mistakes I've made, after the mistakes your parents made, Farkle was always mine.

And Farkle, well, he had always been the very best of us.

I had never actually been alone.

All my love,

Aunt Riley


	7. bay windows (give me purpose)

Dear Grace,

I want to tell you a secret about a place called the bay window. As a little girl, and all the way up till the end of my high school career, I believed there was something magical about the bay window, that sitting at the bay window could solve any problem.

It was a bit like Rileytown in a way. The bay window was a place where darkness and bad things and pessimism existed but only in the context of darkness that could be turned into light, bad things that could be turned into good things, and pessimism could be turned into optimism.

It was a place where the impossible was most definitely possible.

In the end, it was the only place that I could think of that would make it better, would make what had happened between Maya and I better, and it would be the only place that would fix the damage that ran far more extensively than either of us knew.

"It's going to be okay." Farkle had said quietly, "You guys have fought before."

"But not like this." I had responded with a sigh, "We've been sitting here for two hours, Farkle, and we haven't figured anything out yet. Why isn't this working?"

"Isn't it obvious?"

"What?"

"Riley," Farkle intoned, "The bay window is just a place, there's nothing special, nothing great about it, it's just a place. Everything you love about the bay window, everything that's happened, that's all you and Maya. You and Maya are the magic of the bay window."

"It's not working," I had sighed again, "Because she's not here."

"So go to her."

I had leaned over to kiss his cheek, the importance of what he'd done for me, staying with me the entire night while I cried, talking through everything that had happened the next at the bay window, not lost on me in any way.

And then he left through the fire escape, and I left the apartment that I'd grown up in, because somehow after four years I had found myself moving back in with my parents, finding myself right back where I started.

I put on my coat and pulled open my front door only to find Lucas standing there.

"Hey." He had said surprised by the door abruptly opening before he had the chance to knock, "I heard you came by yesterday, I should've called."

"No." I had shaken my head, I was highly aware of how long it had been since Lucas and I had had a real conversation, and maybe, with all the bridges I was burning and mending, it was time to have one with him. "You never have to call."

"Are you busy?" He had asked. "We could get a cup of coffee. Or, well, tea for you."

I smiled at the fact that he remembered.

There's a lot of advice that I could give you, Grace, but if you don't take any advice from anyone, just take this one piece. Remember everything. Not to hold things against people, but because it makes people feel good. When you remember the things they say, the things they want, the things that genuinely matter to them, it's important to let the people you love know that the things that are important to them, are important to you.

"Yeah, I'd like that."

We walked in relative silence to a Starbucks, ordering our respective drinks, and for some reason something stuck out to me.

Lucas didn't pay for me, and I hadn't expected him too.

Once we had started dating in high school, when Lucas was around, I never paid for anything, that was the kind of man that he was, and that was the way I saw love, with traditional chivalry.

But it made me realize something I hadn't realized last night.

We had all ordered dinner the night before, all received separate receipts, with the exception of James who had zero source of income, not that I did more than pick up a shift or two at Topanga's every week, but Maya hadn't paid for her meal.

I hadn't realized it then, but walking out of Starbucks that day, I had realized that Lucas had taken Maya's receipt out of her hand, and placed it along with his own receipt and credit card. He had paid for her. And she hadn't protested once. I hadn't thought about it, because neither of them had thought about it, it was like it was nothing out of the ordinary.

In fact, if I hadn't been watching Lucas so intently that night, I never would've noticed, they moved in such a cohesive unit, and somehow I had never realized that before.

"Is there something going on…" I remember hearing myself say, but then I stopped myself, because even then, I didn't want to think but where that statement could lead. "So how are you?"

Lucas had obviously noticed my abrupt cut off but he didn't call me out on it, he just countered easily, "Shouldn't I be asking you that?"

"Why would you say that?" I had asked looking up at him confused.

"I heard you and Maya got into it last night."

I remember wanting to ask him how he could possibly know that, because the only person I had told was Farkle, and Maya was the only other person there.

But I didn't want to know that answer either.

A lot of things were falling into place, Graceland, and I didn't want to see it, because for those things to fall into place, other things had to fall out of place, fundamental things in my life, and I didn't want to think about that. So I ignored it.

"Why did you break up with me, Lucas?" The question was abrupt, but that was how the whole conversation felt, and I wasn't like Maya, not brave, not bold, so when I made a decision to do something like ask Lucas why he left me, why he couldn't see that I still loved him, I had to do it before I lost the nerve.

Sometimes I wonder what your dad was thinking about in the silence that followed my question, Grace. I wonder if he was thinking about me, thinking about Sunday church services, or Saturday's in Central Park, or maybe those nights we had spent sitting on the fire escape talking about nothing, talking about everything. I wonder if he was thinking about your mom, thinking about all the reasons that it was her and not me that he loved, coming up with a million reasons why it had always been her and not me. Maybe he was thinking about us both.

"Riley, after I was deployed, there were things that happened to me, things that I did…" He was struggling to find an answer, but I wasn't ready to give him an out.

I was so damn tired of the secrets, so damn tired of Maya not telling me things, so damn tired of Lucas thinking that his intelligence position somehow gave him the right to keep secrets beyond what affected national security, because last time I had checked, our relationship had nothing to do with it, I was just so damn tired of fighting with both of them.

And mostly, I was irritated that my mind kept grouping them together, when there was no reason to put them together. There was Maya and then there was Lucas. There was no Maya and Lucas.

Looking back, I think it was my denial that dramatized the situation.

"You owe me a real answer, Lucas. I deserve at the very least, a real answer."

"Can you honestly tell me that you loved me, Riley?"

"Excuse me?" I had asked in an affronted tone, because _how dare he,_ how dare he try to convince me that I didn't love him. I had spent the better part of my life loving him, at the very least I had spent half of it loving him, I had spent nearly as long worrying about him, he didn't get to try and belittle what I felt for him, he didn't get to gently guide me to how he thought I felt about him.

Which, lately, was confused at best. I loved him, that was evident every day, I did love him, but there were flickers of moments in my day where I didn't remember him in places I used to, there were some days when I realized that I hadn't thought about him in a long time, and I'd think I was over him.

But then he'd show up, and that wasn't his fault, he hadn't done anything in two years that suggested that I should have any kind of hope, but I did, and he'd show up, and there it was, and there I was, back in junior year again, when my entire world was Lucas.

Knowing what I know now, I think when I saw Lucas then, after we'd broken up, after he'd moved on, I saw all the things I used to think my life was going to be, when I saw Lucas, I saw who I used to be, and I wanted to be that girl again. It was never truly about Lucas, it was always about me.

It was about the girl I had been when I was dating him. About the hope, about the direction, about the purpose that I had.

I had put so much of myself into Lucas, that I had just become lost after being without him, and that's not what love is, Grace.

What I've come to understand about love, which because I've never known it in the way that your mom and dad know it or the way my dad and mom know it, I've only come to understand through observation, is that love is losing yourself in someone, only to find a new purpose because of them within yourself.

Love is supposed to give you purpose. And you, Grace, are the greatest purpose of all. I can attest to that, and I'll never even get the chance to love you in the way that I would like to.

I just wish I hadn't realized that until it was too late.

Lucas' face softened as he realized that he had said the wrong thing. "I don't mean it like that Riles, I mean I know that you loved me-"

"I love you, Lucas." I had told him, maybe because I was tired of keeping the secret for two years, or maybe it was because I was still seriously annoyed that he was trying to tell me how I feel, whatever it was, I let the words fly, and made him responsible for them. Whether he wanted to know or not. He did now, he had to be as responsible for those words as me. "Right now, in this moment, since I was twelve years old. I love you."

He's a good man, Lucas Friar, I knew that, I knew that better than anyone in the world, I'm not sure that even Maya knows that better than me, and that's not a bad thing, she sees him for everything that he is, and I only saw the good, but sometimes even Lucas managed to surprise me with how good he is.

Even in the middle of all the secrets and the lies, even in the middle of breaking my heart for the final time, for the most permanent time, Lucas Friar was the two things that I knew to hold most true about him, he was unwaveringly loyal, and unconditionally kind.

"I love you too, Riley." Lucas said softly standing there in the middle of that New York sidewalk with me - something that really isn't as romantic as it seems in the movies, because it's actually seriously annoying - giving me what I needed more than anything else, the truth. "I love who I am when I'm with you, I love how much you believe in me, and god I love the way you smile, Riles."

But I could see it, see it as clearly as I saw him that very first day on the subway, he didn't love me, not in the way I wanted him to, not in the way I was sure that he had since sophomore year. He hadn't loved me like that in a long time.

"But that's all I want from you, Riley, all I want for you, is to see you smiling all the time. I love you, but I love you as someone I've known my whole life, as someone I want to be there when something good happens, as someone who I know has always got my back."

"You love me like a sister."

And somehow we'd gotten back to Texas - remember when I told you that weekend was surprisingly irrelevant Grace, I lied, sort of - we'd gotten back to what Maya had realized before any one of us.

Lucas loved me like a sister.

And I, I was still caught somewhere in the middle, caught between wanting to love him like a brother, because that was easier than loving him as anything else, and loving him as a man I could spend my life with. I had predicted this, I knew it would happen just like this, I had said it in Texas, said we would get together, it would be amazing for a while, and then someone would break someone's heart, and we would try to be friends after that, because that's who we were, but it wouldn't work out, and in the end we'd just drift apart, and that was never what I wanted.

I had always known that I wanted Lucas as my friend more than I wanted him as my boyfriend, I had just convinced myself somewhere along the way that I could have both, for the rest of my life.

I was wrong.

At fourteen years old, I had been far smarter than at twenty-two years old.

"And you love an idea of me, Riley." Lucas had said gently, "You love Mr. Perfect, the Moral Compass, and the world isn't so black and white like that, I'm not black and white like that, I'm never going to be the guy you want me to be."

"You were." I had insisted, because those two years, sophomore and junior year had been some of the best years of my life, those two years of my life that I had given to him, that I had given to us, they couldn't just be an illusion. "High school, that was real, Lucas."

"It was." He had smiled a melancholy smile, "Those were some of the best days, Riles. I wanted to be that guy for you, I really did. I think I was, for that little while anyway."

"But you're not anymore."

I spend a lot of time thinking about the 'what ifs' Grace, I can't help it, it's more human nature than anything, but one of my biggest 'what ifs' is, what if Lucas and I hadn't put off that conversation for two years?

What if I had had two years to know with finality that Lucas and I were done? Two years to fall completely and totally out of love with him? Two years to be comfortable with the idea of him being with someone else?

What if we had just had that conversation sooner, maybe things wouldn't have turned out the way that they had?

"I promise you Riley, one day, you're going to meet a guy, and he's not going to change for you, he's not going to change because of you, he's not going to change at all. He's going to be exactly who you need, when you need him. The right person at the right time."

"You're in love with someone." It wasn't an accusation, just a statement, a tired statement of fact that I had been coming across for a long while now. "Who is she, Lucas?"

He only smiled at me, and leaned over slightly, pressing his lips to my head for a long moment, before issuing me a quiet goodbye, before walking away.

I knew.

In that moment I knew, it was Maya, it was Lucas, it was Lucas and Maya. I think I had known for a while, Grace, known for as long as they were in New York.

Known from the way Maya looked at her phone, known from the fact that since Lucas had shown up neither of them picked up their phones once when they had been on them at all times before, known from the way they had both entered relationships at the same time, known from the way they had entered the restaurant together, known from the way that they had treated each other that entire night, known from the way that she knew James, but most of all I knew from the glint of silver that had been hanging around Lucas' neck.

The glint of a small, circular pendant that hung off the same chain as his Navy issued dog tags. I had watched as Maya saved up for months to buy that small piece of white gold, watched as she picked it out, and watched as she slipped the pendant around her neck.

St. Jude, the patron saint of desperate cases and lost causes.

I was clear on how your mom felt about religion, it was about as clear as I felt around that time, she was confused, but your mom had told me that she was about as desperate and lost as it came, and she could probably use some good luck, that maybe it would help her figure something out in the silence, and I had watched as she saved for a year and a half to be able to buy it.

I had never even touched it, forget worn it, but I could've recognized it anywhere. I did recognize it anywhere, on that sidewalk in New York, hanging around Lucas' neck, and there was no denying what I had already known.

Lucas and Maya were together.

"Who is she, Lucas?" I had repeated quietly long after he'd walked away.

All my love,

Aunt Riley


	8. forgive me (for i have sinned)

Dear Grace,

Your mom and I, we talked about Lucas at that bay window a lot, it was pretty much our worst kept secret, that much always held true.

But now that I'm actually thinking about it, I can't remember a single moment when we sat at that bay window and talked about Lucas in terms of Maya and not Riley.

We might have, over time a lot of things have faded, but sitting at the bay window, ten years after we'd first met Lucas, the day your mom was supposed to leave for Chicago, I didn't even know how to begin, didn't even know how to feel, and for some reason all I could think about was if Maya and I had ever had a conversation about her and Lucas at that bay window before.

"How….." I had trailed off.

"It just happened." She had responded just as quietly her eyes never moving from the ground.

I couldn't look at her either. I wasn't sure it mattered if I looked at her or not, I wasn't sure if I'd recognize her either way, but I didn't want to know with absolute certainty, so I didn't look up.

"My Lucas." My tone had been accusing, and even now I think that much she deserved, she deserved my anger, and I deserved her honesty. There was a line, one that we had unspokenly drawn nearly eight years ago, and she hadn't just crossed that line, she had gotten rid of it completely.

"Riles, we never meant to-"

"Hurt me?" I had finished for her with a bitter laugh as I shot up to my feet, "What did you think was going to happen?"

If high school had never happened, if I hadn't gotten the chance to know what it was like to be with Lucas, I could've done what Maya had done for me.

I could've taken my feelings and shoved them down, and tried my best not to feel it, to learn to be happy for them, to learn to be okay with them, but it did, and I had, and the sting of Maya's betrayal hurt more than than the actual way she had betrayed me in the first place.

"Were you planning on telling me? Ever?" I had asked thinking about the conversation we had when she first got to New York, a conversation that felt like a lifetime ago. "Or is it still new, Maya? Not worth mentioning? Because he's wearing your necklace. That seems serious to me."

"Riley, let's not do this." Maya had stood up as well, "Not like this, please."

"How long, Maya?" I had asked in a calm tone that did nothing to show how I was actually feeling, "How long?"

"A while." She had answered reluctantly.

"How can you do that?" I had asked throwing my hand out, "How can you just stand there and lie right to my face?"

"I'm not lying to you, Riley. And I want to talk to you, I've wanted to talk to you for so long, but it was so complicated, and so much has happened, but not like this Riley." Maya had taken my hands in hers, "Not like this, please, just let's take a second, okay?"

"Take a second, for what?"

'I don't know, just a second to think, to regroup."

"So you could figure out what lie you were going to tell me?"

"Riles, please…." Your mom had said so quietly as she finally looked at me, almost begging.

She was crying, and whether I liked it or not, so was I.

For the first time in our lives, we were both on equal grounds, I didn't have more hope than her, and she didn't have more life experience than me, neither of us knew what we were doing, and we were both trying to do the best with what we had, but both of us, were only at our best, when we were together.

And standing in my childhood bedroom, on that bay window where we had talked about everything, talked about anything, where we had fought before, where I was sure that we would fight again, where we had had sleepovers and movie marathons, it was our room, and we had never been further apart.

"Why did you lie to me?" I had asked in a small voice, because I just didn't understand. I didn't understand what I had done to make Maya feel like she couldn't come to me, she couldn't talk to me, what made her think I wouldn't understand - which to her credit, I didn't -, I didn't understand what I had done wrong to deserve for her to lie to me.

"Think, Riley." She had said softly, "We were already falling apart before Lucas and I started dating. This was already happening."

It felt so wrong to hear those words come out of her mouth. To hear the word 'dating ' in reference to her and Lucas, and knowing that was such a loose term to use when trying to encompass all that they were.

"Which was when exactly?"

"I don't know, honey, I really don't." Maya had run a hand through her hair, "It just happened, things changed a year ago-"

" _A whole year?"_

"It's not like that, Riley."

"I don't, I can't, what am I even supposed to think, Maya?"

"I can't tell you what to think."

"Like you couldn't tell me how I felt?"

"Well I was wrong about that wasn't I?"

She was, and she wasn't, but it didn't matter, Texas was a whole lifetime ago, a whole peacetime in comparison to what was happening right now.

"Who's James?"

"What?" Maya had asked confused.

A lot of people like to think they're ready for the truth, after being lied to for so long are just ready for some semblance of honesty, I wasn't interested in lying to myself, I didn't want to talk about Lucas and Maya anymore, but I didn't want to hear any more lies.

I didn't know what I wanted, so I just pushed the problem away temporarily, I decided to shove it away, and not think about it, and not feel it, and I went to my other question.

"James. You obviously knew him, how do you know him?"

"Oh." Maya had softly getting a looking on her face that I didn't understand, "His dad was on Lucas' seal team."

"He's dead." I had said quietly. It was as clear as if she'd said the actual words.

"He doesn't really have anyone else, he lives with his grandma now, so Lucas and I, we do what we can for him."

And there it was again, the grouping of Lucas and Maya together, but somehow it felt so different, so final when they put a child into the mix. Yes, it wasn't their child, they didn't have any kind of custody over him, but Grace, I'd never heard your mom so easily group herself with someone else, I had never heard your mom chance an 'I' to a 'we' so easily.

"When were you going to tell me, Maya?"

She had sighed, "When you came to Chicago. In two weeks."

"Is that a lie?" The words that I would have never thought I'd say to Maya were out of my mouth before I could stop them, and there was something final about them, something damaging about those four words.

"His stuff is everywhere, Riley." Maya had answered in a gentle tone that made me want to rip my own hair out. "He's moving in. There was no way to hide that."

I hated her, Grace. I hated him. I hated both of them. I was so angry, and so confused, and none of it made any sense. How were they moving in with each other? How were they planning their lives around each other? How had they formed a relationship with each other far stronger than either of them had with me? How had all this happened in the space of a year and I hadn't known about any of it?

Those were the questions I could handle, Grace, those were the questions that I could live with, I could still look Maya in the eye, I could still love her, I could still be her sister, I could endure those questions. It was the other questions that made me do what I did.

Had Lucas been in love with Maya in those years where we weren't together but were still choosing to be with one another? Had I taken my clothes off for his lie? Had I just been a means to an end for both of them? If they had lied to me about each other what else had they lied to me about, Grace?

Here's the thing about lying to people, Graceland, the second they find out the truth, the trust is broken, no matter how much there is, no matter how long it has been there, from that point on the trust is gone with one single lie, because you don't know if that lie is one of a million, you don't know if absolutely everything was a lie.

You just don't know anything for sure anymore.

"I have to go." I had said quickly grabbing my bag and jacket off the bed, and making my way out of my bedroom.

"Riles wait!" Maya had called after me.

"No." I had spun around before I softened my harsh tone, "If I stay here I'm going to say something I'll regret, I need to go. I'll call you later."

I didn't wait for her response, I wasn't sure I wanted to hear it, it didn't matter. I slipped on my jacket, and tossed my bag over my shoulder, and nearly ran Lucas down on the outside steps of my family's apartment building.

It was just too much. It was too much to see him out there, waiting for her, like he used to wait for me. It was too much to see him out there, too much to see her standing on the top step staring at Lucas like he was the one she looked to for guidance, for clarity, she'd never looked at me that way, because she was always the one who was supposed to show me the way. She had shoved her way out of her box, but she had intentionally left me behind in mine.

I'm not sure I'll ever be able to put into words what happened after that Grace, about what I said to them, but it was ugly, and I never gave your mom a chance, not one, because in my eyes she was the pariah, she had stolen my happy ending and made it her own, she had not only taken the man I loved but she had taken everything from me, taken my ability to have faith in people, taken my ability to see the bright side, it was ironic that the one who had worked so long to protect my innocence - my naivety - was the one to finally take it away from me.

So I crucified her, Grace, and I can't take back what I said that night, and I think that if she hadn't had Lucas, she would have never been able to come back from what I said that night, because I was cruel. I was everything that I hadn't known I could be, but I wanted to prove to Maya that I could be it.

I could be just as tough, just as mean, I could play just as dirty as her. Turns out, I was even better at it than Maya.

So she chose, I gave her an ultimatum, got in a taxi, and when I came back, she was gone.

All my love,

Aunt Riley


	9. shoebox of hope (the color purple)

Dear Grace,

It's been six years since I last spoke to your parents, six years since for all intents and purposes your parents died, no one talks to me about them, and I don't ask, as it is, there are only four people in my life who are still in their lives.

There's Farkle, there's my Uncle Josh, and then there's my parents.

One of the most important things that I've learned from what happened between Maya and I is that parents don't care about fights. They don't get in the middle of them, but they also don't care about them, they don't pick sides, they don't cut their losses, they stand firmly in the middle.

Parents are Switzerland.

Most of what I've been able to piece together for glimpses of your parents life together come from those four places.

A framed photo of your mom on her wedding day with my parents hanging on the wall in the apartment kitchen told me that they got married.

Your mom looked stunning that day, Grace. Her dress was everything that she was, simple yet elegant, her face was almost completely clear of makeup, and her blonde hair tumbled over her right shoulder. Her cheeks were filled with a rosy blush and her smile reached everywhere, including me.

An envelope in my parent's mail with a returning address in Lucas' messy scrawl told me that they had moved from Chicago to Austin, and a creepy online search that I admit wasn't one of my finest hours, revealed a stunning home on a large piece of land.

It's a 1.6 million dollar house that sits on about five acres of land, and everything about it, though I've only seen the outside in photographs, screams home.

I always thought of Maya in a city, she'd only ever lived in them, from New York to Chicago, somewhere busy, and eclectic, somewhere where something was always happening, where everyone had a story and everybody was getting wasted so it didn't hurt when they told it. I always imagined Maya in the places where the broken-hearted were attracted to.

New York, Chicago, New Orleans, places of danger and excitement.

Something clicked when I saw the home though, something about the life that Maya wanted with her family. She wanted somewhere peaceful, somewhere calm, somewhere her children could feel like everything was safe, everything was better, somewhere where her children could run and play and never worry.

She wanted a house, and that was what Lucas had built her from what had once been a broken home.

Then there was the fact that your mom finally forgave her dad, I was around for the beginning of that, and all the effects of that, but that's a story I'll let your parents, Uncle Josh and Aunt Sara tell you, because that's another story of another great love, Grace, one of mistakes and adversary, and finding love in the most unexpected of places. You'll like that story Grace, it's might be my favorite love story, it's a toss up between theirs and my parents' story.

After I learned about the wedding, I learned about the move, from there I learned about the house, and six months ago when I started writing these letters, I found a postcard in Farkle's living room and I learned about you, Grace.

It's seems fitting that today of all days is when I got around to this last letter.

Over the past five years your parents have become a source of interest in the eyes of the public. I wouldn't say famous in that your parents live quiet lives, you don't see them being followed around by photographers, and social media isn't flooded with rumors and fans, but they are recognizable.

Maya Hart has become legendary in the art world, I shouldn't have expected any differently, but I wasn't around when her art career truly started, what I do know is that her pieces hang in the homes of a lot of powerful people, I know that none of her pieces have gone for less than 20,000 in years, and I know that there are rumors circulating that she's going to be the youngest person to ever have one of her pieces hang in the National Art Gallery.

I also know that about five years ago I graduated from NYU and your mom had promised me she'd stay in New York after graduation. I know how angry I was that she was leaving early to go back to Chicago and I had never even given her the chance to explain why. I know now that she left because a small art museum tucked in the heart of Chicago had agreed to display her painting in an exhibit about people. I also know that there is an 8x12 canvas wrapped in brown paper that's sitting in my closet unopened.

Two months after Maya left New York, left me, the canvas came in the mail, I haven't had the heart to look at it, but I know what it's called, it's written in her neat handwriting on the top left corner, and I know.

I know that the very first painting that Maya's ever professionally done, the painting that started her entire career, the very first thing she'd ever displayed to the world is a painting about me.

A painting titled, "The Color Purple."

I used to insist that I was good at art, back in middle school, I used to draw Lucas, or cats, but one thing held true, from some reason beyond even me, every time I painted, I only ever used the color purple.

One day I'd like to think I'll be brave enough to open it, to see the painting, but for now, it's tucked away inside my closet.

Along with the painting is a newspaper article and photograph that I store with it. Just as your mother has received public interest so has your father.

The picture is simple - it's your dad holding a medal and shaking hands with the President. That medal, however, isn't so simple, in fact that medal is the highest honor anyone in the service can receive. The Medal of Honor. An award given for a deed of personal bravery or self-sacrifice performed above and beyond the call of duty while a member of the armed forces in actual combat with an enemy nation.

I shouldn't have been surprised by that either, really. Your father has a lot of fantastic qualities, Graceland, but the most important and the most constant quality he has is his protectiveness. He cares for everyone, and he loves fiercely, and he'd sacrifice his own life for a stranger on the street.

It was who he had always been, and it had only been enhanced by joining the Navy.

I'll probably never know why your dad received the medal, every media outlet reports it as something done during a black ops mission, but I know your mom knows. I know because she's standing the background of that photo in a simple black dress and she looks so immensely proud of your father, but so immensely sad.

I also know one other thing, I know that your father is the only person to be alive to receive the medal in fifteen years, and that whatever he did, he did before he and Maya left, I know this because next to the picture of Lucas is a picture of a small boy, no older than nine shaking the President's hand while receiving a medal for his father in absentia.

Whatever Lucas had done, he had done with James' father whose name I learned from the article was junior grade Lieutenant Nicholas Spencer, and he had died for it.

Now I have one more thing to add to the small shrine to your parents I've built - a shoebox if you will - and it comes in the cover photo and feature article of the New York Time Magazine that focuses on the life of your parents.

They've never done anything like that before, as I told you before, both seem intent on quiet lives, and it doesn't seem like either have any intention of doing it again, but when the Times asks, people have a tendency to answer positively.

The article doesn't tell me anything I don't already know, at least not anything big, but it does confirm one of the questions I had when I wrote you that first letter.

Turns out, they do call you Grace after all.

So there it is, and here we are, and as it turns out, we're all okay. Damaged, torn apart, bruised, yes to all of the above. But we're all okay.

None of us came out the way we used to be, but we all found our own way, even me. It took a lot of time, and it took a lot of pain, but I put the pieces of my life together. I found my place in the world, I figured out what I wanted to do with my life, and I figured out the kind of person that I wanted to be.

There was something I told you in the second letter. I told you that it was fact, the sky is blue, the grass is green, Maya is my best friend, and Lucas is going to be a veterinarian, those were all fact.

I was wrong.

So let me tell you a couple of facts that can't be disproven.

The sky is blue, the grass is green, Maya is happy, and I am a veterinarian.

Happy birthday, Grace.

All my love,

Aunt Riley

And with that comes the end of Dear Grace. I have so many things I want to say to all of you beautiful humans but I just want to say this first…. Thank you. When I first posted this story, I didn't expect much out of it, and I certainly didn't expect the amount of love and appreciation I've received from all of you. I'm beyond floored, and beyond grateful for all of you for reading.

Dear Grace was just an idea I had in my head that stemmed from two things, Riley and Maya constantly saying they would step back for one another, and Riley and Maya constantly saying that it was them forever. It made me wonder what would happen if it wasn't Riley and Maya forever, what would be the cause of the breakdown of their relationship, and from that I was led to, what if neither of them stepped back? The answers to both of those questions came to life for me in the form of Dear Grace.

With that said I'd like to say thank you one more time, you guys have been incredible to me, and I couldn't ever have expected that. So that just leaves the two questions I need answering. Would you like to see a prequel to Dear Grace (Lucas and Maya's version of the story) and would you like me to create a tumblr to interact with you guys as I won't be doing author's notes in any chapter besides the very last one of the story?

By the way Riley's decision to ultimately become a veterinarian had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that Lucas wanted to be one, I'm just a sucker for parallelism and for things coming full circle.


End file.
